In Act 1 Scene 5 Lady Macbeth confirms that at the beginning of the play she not cruel nor amoral, nor insensitive; it is purely that she is complete and utterly strong minded and committed to her aspirations;
“make thick my blood; stop up th’ access and passage to remorse, that no compunctious visitings o nature shake my purpose, nor keep between the effect”
Lady Macbeth deliberately becomes remorseless so she can govern her husband to his power which will also benefits her. These chosen sacrifice pay their price later in the play:
“Thy letters have transported me beyond This ignorant present, and I feel now The future in the instant”.
Macbeth’s letters have aroused her devious nature and she has plotted and schemed. She has pictures herself as queen to him and is now relentlessly obsessing to crown herself, metaphorically and literally, with her achievement.
“look like the innocent flower but be the serpent lying under’t”
Lady Macbeth is adamant that Macbeth carries out her wishes.
“and you shall put this night's great business into my dispatch”
She commands and takes control of the situation due to her continuing doubts about his moral beliefs and willpower interrupting their mission.
“We will speak further”
Macbeth remains unconvinced:
“To alter favour ever is to fear”.
She ignores his pleas insisting, on the danger that his feelings may bring to this tentative position.
Macbeth’s uncertainty can be partly due to not just being made Cawdor but the previous affiliation and favours Duncan has bestowed on him.
“Your majesty loads our house: for those of old,”
Implying Duncan’s favours go beyond his recent praise further evidence for this can be cited in Act 1 Scene 4
“The service and the loyalty I owe, In doing it, pays itself. Your highness' part Is to receive our duties; and our duties Are to your throne”.
In Act 1 Scene 7 Macbeth’s soliloquy, another monologue like language device preferred by Shakespeare in “Macbeth”, often express his characters deepest desires and overly negative thoughts of the people around them:
“If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well it were done quickly”
Macbeth expresses that he doesn’t want to torture Duncan and a quick and painless sleeping death would be all he could deliver all be it he feels it’s unjust to murder such an honourable man in his sleep.
“this blow Might be the be-all and the end-all here”
He further expresses his reluctance to the task at hand but still sees it’s importance; he indicates that if and when he kills Duncan that would be the be all and end all and no acts would follow, then he would barely hesitate. However, he knows this isn’t the case and must find strength for this is just a step to his path of greatness:
“as I am his kinsman and his subject, strong both against the deed; then, as his host who should against the murderer shut the door, not bear the knife myself”.
Macbeth’s feelings of guilt intensify as not only as his loyal server to the king and country but as his host, is not a righteous path to walk down.
“I have no spur to prick the sides of my intent, but only vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself and falls on the other.”
He has no motive but the selfish wishes and ambitions of himself and his wife. Therefore he feels it can only be a unsatisfactory reason for creating such a cowardly and despicable act of murder.
In Act 1Scene 7 Lady Macbeth’s pride and utter determination is unreserved, she is overpowering Macbeth’s guilt and with sheer will. She is not afraid of what outcome may follow and she is ordering him to do as she pleases:
Macbeth: “we will proceed no further in this business”
Lady Macbeth: “Was the hope drunk wherein you dress'd yourself? Hath it slept since?”
She accuses him of being cowardly and expresses that his determination has died since they last spoke of their plans:
“Art thou afeard to be the same in thine own act and valour As thou art in desire?”
In claiming his fear of acting on his ambitions, she is hoping to touch a nerve by the continuous raging mockery; she is solely hoping to spur him on to do the deed she craves him to act on:
“And live a coward in thine own esteem”
Macbeth’s response is ferocious; he knows he has to silence her at once:
“Prithee, peace: I dare do all that may become a man; who dares do more is none.”
He insists he as a worthy man and will act on any bravery expected of a man. This line implies he is as noble as a soldier could be but he cannot do an unjust duty, possibly subconsciously is not only that the king hasn’t ordered but that a woman has.
“What beast was't, then, that made you break this enterprise to me? When you durst do it, then you were a man; And, to be more than what you were, you would be so much more the man.”
Lady Macbeth’s questions his manhood. This point proving if maybe more than any that Lady Macbeth’s marriage to Macbeth is more equal than most. A typical woman in Elizabethan society to raise her voice to her husband, a soldier, a thane, and question his manly judgement, would not be permitted:
“while it was smiling in my face, Have pluck'd my nipple from his boneless gums, And dash'd the brains out, had I so sworn as you Have done to this”.
Lady Macbeth continues insisting the strength of a man’s word and that it cannot be broken.
“We fail! But screw your courage to the sticking-place, And we'll not fail.”
Her wondrous dreams conclude that winning is all that matters; she wants and needs to be queen or die trying imploring him to commit himself to the act albeit treasonous.
In Act 2 Scene 1, Macbeth’s soliloquy revolves around imagining a dagger placed in front of him although knowing it is imaginary and just a fragment of his guilt stricken imagination:
“Is this a dagger which I see before me”
“Alarum'd by his sentinel, the wolf, Whose howl's his watch, thus with his stealthy pace.”
Shakespeare compares Macbeth to an animal of the night; he must follow out his deed with conviction to take charge of his pack. In the animal kingdom such an act would regularly occur and not be looked at twice as is natural to those. Macbeth must hunt like the wolf, the original dog, and deny his conscience in order to become the ultimate predator.
At the end of the soliloquy, in scene 7 of the first act, are two separate rhyming couplets; Shakespeare’s use of rhyming couplets is usually to depict the characters thoughts just before a major event:
“Whiles I threat, he lives: Words to the heat of deeds too cold breath gives.”
Macbeth is summoning himself to stop his ranting and perform hastily, which is quite true. The longer he thinks about it the less likely he is to do it.
“Hear it not, Duncan; for it is a knell That summons thee to heaven or to hell.”
The audience now presumes after this act that the deed was carried out.
The first lines in Act 1 Scene 2 are of Lady Macbeth discussing alcohol; “That which hath made them drunk hath made me bold; What hath quench'd them hath given me fire.”
The negative effect on them has had the effect on her she craves, and enabled her to feel no guilt on the assassination.
When Macbeth returns bearing the good news, in her mind, she makes a pitiful excuse of why she has not carried out the deed she relished more than him.
“Had he not resembled My father as he slept, I had done't.”
Thus more evidence suggesting Lady Macbeth is not a psychopath as her ambitions that have been manifested in aggressive and murderous behaviour, she could not follow through personally for she is not a warrior like Macbeth and has probably never taken a life. Yet, after the murder, Macbeth’s panicking paranoiac behaviour is ignored by Lady Macbeth
Macbeth: “'Glamis hath murder'd sleep, and therefore Cawdor
Shall sleep no more; Macbeth shall sleep no more.'”
Lady Macbeth: “Why, worthy thane, You do unbend your noble strength, to think So brainsickly of things.”
Macbeth’s is instantly driven mad after the murder of Duncan. He cannot yet control his acts; he’s in a frenzy of hysteria. He believes he will never wash his hands of the deed:
“Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood Clean from my hand?”
Lady Macbeth’s attitude is very different:
“Your constancy Hath left you unattended.”
She is now in complete control and he relies on her commands to get through the night and she scornfully scrutinizes his behaviour.
In Act 2 scene 3, Shakespeare uses dramatic irony after the king has been murdered. Lady Macbeth is told of the news by Macduff:
“O gentle lady,' Tis not for you to hear what I can speak: The repetition, in a woman's ear, Would murder as it fell”
Later in the scene, Macbeth is verbally burbling over the murder of the guards and arousing suspicion from the on looking Thanes; Lady Macbeth faints out of sheer concern of their task being ended by the clumsiness of her husband. This indicates her aiding him is not only for her own interests but implying that their relationship is a partnership.
Since Act 1 Scene 3 the relationship of Banquo and Macbeth has altered immensely. At the beginning of Act 3, Banquo is aware of Macbeth’s actions but doesn’t tell his former noble accomplice in case he himself is murdered:
“Thou hast it now: king, Cawdor, Glamis, all, as the weird women promised, and, I fear, Thou play'dst most foully for't”.
After Macbeth talks neighbourly to Banquo and wishes him farewell, while transparently finding the details of his departure, his true thoughts are known
“There is none but he Whose being I do fear”
Shakespeare also makes another Ancient Rome reference as
“Mark Antony's was by Caesar.”
In Act 3 Scene1, when Macbeth orders Banquo’s murders, this could be considered the pivotal moment in the play. He does not consult his wife and grows independent in amoral sin. This role reversal is made increasingly imminent in the following scene where Lady Macbeth is seen weary and weak, symbolizing Macbeth’s turn in ability to be able to carry out evil acts without doubt. Lady Macbeth from this point on is weakened and without need to control her husband and she soon loses the ability to control herself. Macbeth emblazoned with power before he goes insane with guilt “Lady Macbeth: what’s to be done?
Macbeth: Be innocent of the knowledge, dearest chuck,
Till thou applaud the deed.”
In Act 3 scene 4 when Macbeth is asked to sit yet he sees the ghost of Banquo in his chair his guilt and paranoia is blatant, he is instantly on the defensive though not being challenged
“Thou canst not say I did it: never shake Thy gory locks at me.”
Lady Macbeth reaches in as in fainting to distract attention, she claims an excuse before expressing her rage to Macbeth
“Are you a man?” and “What, quite unmann'd in folly?”.
Ever questioning his manhood
“Blood hath been shed ere now, i' the olden time, Ere human statute purged the gentle weal; Ay, and since too, murders have been perform'd…but now they rise again,”
Historically, most people viewing the play “Macbeth” when it was first acted, would have generally believed in the supernatural, therefore Shakespeare is adding a supernatural element that people would be famililar with. In the modern day, Banquo’s ghost would be like the dagger and just a symbolic prop hinted as a piece of imagination. However then like the witches, they would genuinely believe that the dead would be joining the hosts at dinner. Macbeth is trying to claim a manliness that would be true to his valour as a soldier, under the mockery of his wife, “Take any shape but that, and my firm nerves Shall never tremble”, inferring nothing will scare him but his conscience.
At the end of Scene 4 of the third act, Lady Macbeth is found asking about what he is going to do about Macduff and generally what next? For now Macbeth is in control and she is doing what he wishes despite the incident with Banquo’s ghost, he is firmly now placed as the man in their relationship.
In Act 4 Scene 1 Macbeth is confronted with three apparitions whose predictions reveal:
“Macbeth! Macbeth! Macbeth! beware Macduff; Beware the thane of Fife. Dismiss me. Enough.”
Macbeth was originally worried about Macduff but now this has been confirmed he is thankful.
“Be bloody, bold, and resolute; laugh to scorn The power of man, for none of woman born Shall harm Macbeth.”
Macbeth foolishly decides this means no one can kill him and he forgets his initial fears of Macduff.
“Macbeth shall never vanquish'd be until Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill
Shall come against him.”
This further comforts Macbeth as he now thinks he is invincible because no one can physically move a forest. However, the witches ploy is to meddle and Shakespeare has written these as trickery, Macduff was born of a caesarean section and is not according to Shakespearian audience not of woman born. By Birnam Wood coming to Dunsinane, he means the wood moves in leaves and camouflage. Hecates orders of mischief were carried out for their previous prophecies were factually beneficial. Now they are misleading him into believing he is immortal and will not be defeated:
“Time, thou anticipatest my dread exploits:”
Macbeth knows he has not much time but must act on the news of Macduff gathering an army but does not seek his Lady’s help he is instead overly casual of the situation relating to his recent news.
In Act 5 Scene 1, Shakespeare uses Lady Macbeth’s sleepwalking sequence to relive the events of the couples past for the audience, which puts subsequent scenes into perspective for them:
“a soldier, and afeard?”
She speaks of her husband’s nerves but also of her own remorse
“What, will these hands ne'er be clean?”
Lady Macbeth’s initial empowerment has been deadened by guilt and driven her to the brink of insanity; she who criticized Macbeth for his lack of conviction is now whimsical and helpless and her death is imminent.
“What does the tyrant?” and “confident tyrant”
Menteith describes Macbeth as a tyrant, abusing his power, cheating and lying. His former colleagues feel none but disdain for his actions.
“Some say he's mad; others that lesser hate him Do call it valiant fury”
These two statements of madness and bravery display hatred with mutual respect. His wrath is now coming to a close but he cannot turn back now he must die like a noble soldier as he lived most of his adult life but he is still not completely aware of his soon departure for the words of the three witches gave him false hope.
“Bring me no more report”
“Shall never sag with doubt nor shake with fear.”
Macbeth is in complete power; he has become the evil dictator his wife aspired him to yet she is not in the health to see it.
“Bring it after me. I will not be afraid of death and bane, Till Birnam forest come to Dunsinane.”
This rhyming couplet represents Macbeth’s loss of doubt; everything he feared before he has embraced and it has empowered him as a king to fight, not for his country, for himself and only himself.
“Were I from Dunsinane away and clear, Profit again should hardly draw me here.”
The Doctor’s self-sympathy in aside rhyming couplet is representative of all the servants and unlucky servers of the King who have been forced to loyalty under his emphatic regime.
In Act 5 Scene 5
“I have almost forgot the taste of fears; The time has been, my senses would have cool'd To hear a night-shriek”
This is Macbeth’s admitting his change in character but know his life has been so corrupted by murders of the innocent.
“She should have died hereafter; There would have been a time for such a word.”
When Lady Macbeth dies, Macbeth is almost emotionless as he soon discovers his confidence was unjust and his life will soon be over as well.
“If this which he avouches does appear, There is nor flying hence nor tarrying here. I gin to be aweary of the sun, And wish the estate o' the world were now undone. Ring the alarum-bell! Blow, wind! come, wrack! At least we'll die with harness on our back.”
Macbeth is now prepared for immortality, he can take back his sins and treacheries for now he can only fight till death and die with the honour of a soldier albeit a corrupt one.
“Why should I play the Roman fool, and die On mine own sword?”
Macbeth again references Ancient Rome, he expresses the urge to die fighting. His wife is dead as well as his best friend and that was at his hands and also his king.
Macbeth’s death was always inevitable.
“Of this dead butcher and his fiend-like queen”
I don’t believe Malcolm’s comments are entirely accurate way to describe Macbeth and Lady Macbeth because even though there are some elements of truth there, in the end, they regretted their actions and regret is not something a “butcher” or a “fiend” might feel. A “butcher” and a “fiend” are the alter egos of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. The starting point of Macbeth and actions are the witches’ prediction. This is the cause of their actions because the predictions were already planted in their minds. Macbeth cannot be described as a butcher because individually he would not of been able to kill the king. Although Lady Macbeth manipulated him into murdering Duncan, she was drunk on royal fantasies, and the next day her guilt became unbearable and led to her loss of sanity and subsequently, her death. Macbeth could also not bring himself to murder Banquo or Macduff’s family personally so ordered assassins to kill them instead.
In conclusion, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth can be described as partners. However were never in equal roles. One needs to be stronger and dominant at each given time although this position is exchanged throughout the course of the play.
